<p>I'm just wondering if there's anyone here who has some sort of a success story to share with us. I'm a third year undergrad in civil engineering and I want to apply for MS/MEng to top 10 engineering schools. However, I have really horrible first year grades and they pull my cumulative GPA down. Currently I have amazing grades (straight A's) and lots of summer research experience. If I continue this trend, I'll end up with a cum GPA of 3.4. I'm just wondering what the consequences are going to be for those bad first year grades. But I can't really compare myself to people here because everyone has stellar GPAs :) </p>
<p>I'm looking for some extraordinary examples to motivate myself. Did anyone have the same problem? If so, what were your stats and how did you end up doing in your applications?</p>
<p>I didn’t have a terrible first year, but I wound up with a 3.0 both times which was way below where I wanted to be. I did much better in all of my following terms, bringing it up to something like a 3.6 for grad school. I had a bunch of research experiences and solid recommendations and was accepted to a couple of top-10 schools in my field for grad (rejected for a few as well, haha).</p>
<p>That’s great! How did you do in GRE? Also, did you get accepted to any Ivy-equivalent schools? Did you briefly explain why you did bad in first year in any of your essays?</p>
<p>I had really messed up freshman and sophomore years. My GPA was probably less than a 3.0. It was around 60% by our grading scale here, which is quite low. I buckled up in my junior year (but still ended up with nothing more than a 3.2 or so overall), got a good GRE score and most importantly, worked my arse off on my SOPs. Currently, I have admits from CMU and Georgia Tech, which are the two best universities for my field.</p>
<p>A strong improvement trend means you will be just fine.</p>
<p>I had a 3.0 UGPA, but with a 3.8 in my senior year - ended up accepted at almost every place I applied, and enrolled at a top school in my field (IU).</p>
<p>Ivy doesn’t matter at the graduate level. Since I’m in engineering, really there’s only two ivies that people even care about, and that’s because they’re good at what they do and not because they belong to a specific sports league.</p>
<p>I did alright on my GREs, math was below where it should have been, did better than most on verbal/writing. GRE doesn’t really matter a whole lot though. It’s mostly just a box that has to be checked because everyone else does it.</p>
<p>Didn’t mention anything about my grades since grad schools are hiring you as a researcher, not a student to get good grades (at least when you’re applying for a PhD). I felt my improved grades within my major spoke for themselves. There was no need to waste the little space you have on personal statements to talk about them when there when I had lots of research in my past to discuss.</p>
<p>Don’t bother to explain your first year grades. Professors know that the first year can be a huge adjustment for students. Your excellent upward trend and your summer research should be enough to be seriously considered at many programs, although your success will depend in part on your LORs and the profiles of the other applicants.</p>
<p>I know that some schools don’t care too much about first year grades. However, in such a huge applicant pool, having a cumulative GPA lower than most of the other applicants is not a good thing to have. I contacted UC Berkeley’s grad admissions office and they said they usually consider students with a cum GPA of 3.5 or higher. It’s funny because no matter if I get 4.0 GPAs in both junior and senior years, my cum GPA is going to be below 3.50. This situation really upsets me to be honest…</p>
<p>If there’s nothing you can do at this point, no point in thinking about it too much. If you really want to go to these places, just apply and do the best you can; it’s definitely not impossible to get in, so don’t lose hope. You already knew presumably you wouldn’t be a “typical” person they consider, so you clearly have to stand out in another way. I think it’s more productive to focus on how you can make yourself impressive in other areas (while getting high grades in you last couple of years of course).</p>